mindfulness in daily life

Full-screen living

Leo Babauta has a great post at Zen Habits (a site I must remember to visit more often) on Full-Screen Living.

Many of us who write, he points out, use tools that simplify our computer screens. My last book, and most of my blog posts, were written in an application called WriteRoom, which presents me with a black screen, green plain type, and no formatting options, toolbars, or any other distractions. When I’m reading news articles on the web I often use Readability, which is a browser plugin that reformats the screen to make reading an undistracted full-screen experience. Babauta mentions these options, and more, and this may be new to you, but it’s something I’m already deeply into. (Readability has announced since I wrote this post that it’s closing down, but here’s an alternative if you use the Chrome browser.)

But where he gets really interesting is when he takes “full-screen” as a metaphor for life. It’s a brilliant metaphor, and along with many other writers I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think of it myself. Here’s the juicy part of his article:

That’s fine for computer work, but what about life in general? You can live exactly the same way.

If you’re going to spend time with your child, don’t switch between the child tab and the work tabs in the browser of your mind. Put your child into full-screen mode, and let him take up all your attention, and let work and everything else you need to do later fade into the background.

You’ll still get to the work, when you’re done with what you’re doing with your child, but for now, be fully in this one activity, with this one person. When you’re done with that, you can bring your work into full-screen mode, and let the rest of your life go into the background for the moment.

If you eat, let the food fill up the screen of your attention, not your thinking about other things. If you’re showering, let that fill your attention, instead of planning. When you’re brushing your teeth, let the “conversation” (read: argument) you had earlier fade away and just brush your teeth.

When you work, do one task at a time. And don’t just do one task at a time, but do that task with all your attention (or as much as possible), and don’t be thinking about the other tasks.

But how do we do this. Babauta has some advice on this too, but I’ll let you read that on Zen Habits.

Read More

How to commute like a Buddhist

NY Daily News: If you’re wondering how to trek to work without losing your mind, Emmy Award-winner and New York City-based meditation teacher David Nichtern offers up a few pointers on curbing commuter stress.

“People think of spiritual practice as a tranquilizer,” Nichtern told fitness blog Well+Good NYC on September 3. “But I’m not from the school of ‘Let’s just chant something.’ My school is awareness. The more aware you are, the more likely you’re headed to a positive outcome.”

So, how to make your commute more mindful? He offers up a few ways to respond to common commute scenarios, as per his interview …

Read the original article »

Read More

Be more mindful for a better workplace

Jen Weigel, Chicago Tribune: Can you be a success in the world of business and still be mindful? What exactly does it mean to be “mindful” anyway? According to Mirabai Bush, one of the creators of a mindfulness course developed for Google employees called “Search Inside Yourself,” you will be more productive and motivated if you use respect, compassion and generosity in the workplace.

“Mindfulness has to do with paying attention to what’s happening in the moment without judgment,” said Bush. “Sometimes people think being mindful means being slow — it’s not about being slow, it’s about being slow enough that you can …

Read the original article »

Read More

Five tips for National Relaxation Day

In our fast-paced world it seems everyone’s stressed, hassled, and exhausted, so it’s a good thing that August 15, 2012 has been declared National Relaxation Day.

When they think about relaxing, most people would tend to hit upon rather conventional things, like soaking in the bath, having a glass of wine at the end of the evening, or watching a movie. But those things are temporary fixes that don’t lead to long-term change. Instead, I’d like to suggest five habits that can be cultivated and practiced every day. These are skills that can become a permanent part of the way you function in your daily life, and bring you long term benefits. And you can do them whether or not you have time for a long relaxing soak in the tub.

1. Take your time eating
We all have to eat, and we don’t generally do it very mindfully. We watch TV while we eat, or we read, or we’re caught up in a conversation, or we just space out. Sometimes, heaven help us, we even eat while we drive.

It’s very enriching, and deeply relaxing, to eat mindfully. It might not be feasible to eat every mouthful of food with complete attention, but what if we were to eat the first and last mouthful of a meal or snack mindfully? Whether you’re eating a gourmet meal or a candy bar, really notice the movements of your body as you transfer the food toward your mouth. Notice yourself receiving the food — how it feels, tastes. Eat slowly. Chew methodically. Savor the experience. If you find you’ve plowed into your food and are mindlessly scarfing it down, pause, and take the next bite with full awareness.

2. Give yourself short breathing breaks during the day
You may have heard of the three-minute breathing space, in which you spend a minute just tuning in to an awareness of your experience, a minute focusing on the sensations of the breathing in order to gather your attention, and a minute expanding your awareness so that you’re no longer noticing just the breathing, but also other sensations from the body, your mind and emotions, the sounds, light, and space around you. Even on the busiest of days it’s a good idea to take a few of these three minute breaks.

If that seems impossible, then just pause what you’re doing, take a few mindful breaths, and then bring your attention back to the task at hand.

3. Notice what your thinking is doing to you
A Harvard study of 250,000 people found that they spent almost 50% of their waking time thinking about something other than they were doing. What’s more, they found that the people who were most distracted were more likely to report feelings of unhappiness. Much of our thinking promotes unhappiness.

So develop the skill of checking in from time to time to see what your thoughts are doing to you. Notice whether you’re relaxed or tense, whether your overall experience is pleasant or unpleasant, whether you’re happy or distressed. Notice this without making any judgements about yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re “bad” or a “failure” for harboring thoughts that make you feel bad. But see if you can just notice those thoughts, and let them pass away. Actually, just to notice how you’re feeling you have to let go of some of the compulsion around these inner dramas.

4. Reduce input channels
One thing that really stresses us is being interrupted. So give yourself a chance to focus. If you’re writing a report, shut off your email program, turn your phone off (don’t just switch it to vibrate). Close any programs you don’t need to have open. It’s just you, and the task. You’ll find that when your concentration isn’t interrupted, you’re not only more relaxed and happy, but you get more done.

5. Give yourself a break from the news
We get really hooked on the news, and we stress about it. That politician and his lies! Those criminals! That tragic accident two cities away! It seems like it’s vital to keep in touch with what’s happening. What if a war were to break out and nobody told you? Well, I remember times I went abroad on vacation and didn’t have access to English-language news media. And you know what? When I got back, I felt like I hadn’t missed anything. Most of the news is the same old yadda-yadda, and the TV companies are trying to built it up so that you’ll get mad, be scared, and pay attention (and by the way, here’s an ad for a new wonder-drug).

Try unplugging from the news entirely for just a day. Or maybe for a week, go on a news fast and do nothing more than glance at the headlines in the newspapers. The world will go on, and you’ll be happier.

I’m not suggesting that you abstain from news for life, but at least for a while give yourself a break so that reading or watching the news is a choice and not a compulsion. And you’ll realize how much your own habits stop you from being relaxed.

Read More

The sacred pause

In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can’t control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we frantically try to manage what is happening. Our child takes a downward turn in academics and we issue one threat after another to get him in line. Someone says something hurtful to us and we strike back quickly or retreat. We make a mistake at work and we scramble to cover it up or go out of our way to make up for it. We head into emotionally charged confrontations nervously rehearsing and strategizing.

The more we fear failure the more frenetically our bodies and minds work. We fill our days with continual movement: mental planning and worrying, habitual talking, fixing, scratching, adjusting, phoning, snacking, discarding, buying, looking in the mirror.

What would it be like if, right in the midst of this busyness, we were to consciously take our hands off the controls? What if we were to intentionally stop our mental computations and our rushing around and, for a minute or two, simply pause and notice our inner experience?

See also:

Learning to pause is the first step in the practice of Radical Acceptance. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving towards any goal. The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours or for seasons of our life.

We may take a pause from our ongoing responsibilities by sitting down to meditate. We may pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath. We may pause by stepping out of daily life to go on a retreat or to spend time in nature or to take a sabbatical. We may pause in a conversation, letting go of what we’re about to say, in order to genuinely listen and be with the other person. We may pause when we feel suddenly moved or delighted or saddened, allowing the feelings to play through our heart. In a pause we simply discontinue whatever we are doing—thinking, talking, walking, writing, planning, worrying, eating—and become wholeheartedly present, attentive and, often, physically still.

A pause is, by nature, time limited. We resume our activities, but we do so with increased presence and more ability to make choices. In the pause before sinking our teeth into a chocolate bar, for instance, we might recognize the excited tingle of anticipation, and perhaps a background cloud of guilt and self-judgment. We may then choose to eat the chocolate, fully savoring the taste sensations, or we might decide to skip the chocolate and instead go out for a run. When we pause, we don’t know what will happen next. But by disrupting our habitual behaviors, we open to the possibility of new and creative ways of responding to our wants and fears.

Of course there are times when it is not appropriate to pause. If our child is running towards a busy street, we don’t pause. If someone is about to strike us, we don’t just stand there, resting in the moment—rather, we quickly find a way to defend ourselves. If we are about to miss a flight, we race toward the gate. But much of our driven pace and habitual controlling in daily life does not serve surviving, and certainly not thriving. It arises from a free-floating anxiety about something being wrong or not enough. Even when our fear arises in the face of actual failure, loss or even death, our instinctive tensing and striving are often ineffectual and unwise.

Taking our hands off the controls and pausing is an opportunity to clearly see the wants and fears that are driving us. During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance.

Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so. Pausing in a fit of anger, or when overwhelmed by sorrow or filled with desire, may be the last thing we want to do. Pausing can feel like falling helplessly through space—we have no idea of what will happen. We fear we might be engulfed by the rawness of our rage or grief or desire. Yet without opening to the actual experience of the moment, Radical Acceptance is not possible.

Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises. Like awakening from a dream, in the moment of pausing our trance recedes and Radical Acceptance becomes possible.

From Radical Acceptance (2003). Published with permission.

Read More

Ten tips for setting up a meditation practice

The benefits of meditation come with regular practice, and that means making it part of your life. That’s one of the great challenges of learning meditation, so here are ten tips for establishing a meditation practice.

1. Get some instruction

You can learn the techniques of meditation from books and CDs: there are some good ones around (check out our shop). There are also meditation apps. But it helps a lot to learn from a live class if you can make it to one. Take a course – or go to a class where you can ask questions about the issues. In time, it helps to have friends or teachers who are more experienced meditators than you are.

2. Settle on a practice that suits you

On an meditation course there are three main practices – the mindfulness of breathing, the body scan and mindful movement, and there are many others out there. It’s worth experimenting a bit and then settling on the practice, or combination of practices, that work for you.

3. Find a regular time for practice

You might start off thinking you’ll just try fitting meditation into your day somehow or other, but establishing a practice means finding a time that works for you. For many people, first thing in the morning before the day starts up is a good time; others prefer the evening. There are pros and cons with either so you’ll need to experiment.

4. Set up a meditation place

You can meditate anywhere, but if you sit down amid clutter it has an effect. So set aside a space that evokes the feeling of meditation. Some flowers, a candle or an image on a table can be enough to encourage the feeling that you’re leaving aside the usual preoccupations. It also helps to set aside the cushions or chair that need for meditation, and it’s worth thinking about getting some meditation cushions or a stool.

5. Talk to your family or housemates

To avoid people barging in or turning up the music just as you start to get settled, talk to the people you live with and let them know what you are doing. Don’t worry if they thing you’re weird: if they notice you’re calmer and happier they’ll soon change.

6. Meditate with others

It’s hard to keep anything going on your own, at least to start with. We all need encouragement and guidance. Many people find a setting where they can meditate with others: Buddhist centres, sitting groups, and even virtual settings, like a videoconference or app.

7. Go on retreat

Retreats are a chance to get away from all the things that usually fill up our lives. They vary in length: you can find day retreats or residential retreats for a weekend or longer. Just being quiet and meditating several times a day lets everything settle down so your experience can go deeper. On an intensive retreat you don’t do much apart from meditate, but there are less demanding options as well.

8. Take your practice off the cushion

If you think of meditation as something that only happens in the formal practice time, it will be hard to maintain. So look for ways to keep the thread of mindfulness and meditation alive through the day. The Three Minute Breathing Space gives you time to stop and connect with mindfulness, and you can find many more, informal ways to do the same.

9. Reflect on your values

Most of us get enthusiastic, every so often, about a certain kind of exercise or studying a particular subject. But, looking back, we only maintain a few of these. They are the ones that touch on the values at the core of our lives. If you can make the connection between something that is a deep-seated drive like helping others or understanding the truth, or a pressing concern like not getting depressed or being more effective as a parent, then you’re much more likely to be able to sustain it.

10. Be patient … and persistent

Establishing a regular meditation practice is a long-term project. You may miss days, get discouraged or just forget about meditation for a while. The key thing is to keep going. If you force yourself to meditate when you really don’t feel like it, you’ll probably have a reaction to the whole idea; but if you wait until you do feel like it before you pick your practice up again, it may never happen. But with time, you figure out ways to make your practice happen.

Read More

The Mindful Manifesto, by Dr. Jonty Heaversedge and Ed Halliwell

The Mindful Manifesto presents — and represents — the continuing move of mindfulness practices into the mainstream of western culture. And mainstream it is. Almost daily, news articles appear highlighting the various ways that meditation is being taken up by ordinary people living ordinary lives, and used by veterans and trauma survivors, and adapted by clinicians to treat depression, stress, obesity, behavioral disorders in children, to give just a few examples. A constant stream of scientific papers appear from researchers, investigating — and confirming — meditation’s ability to do everything from slowing cellular aging to promoting growth in the brain, to improving our sex lives.

The authors are Ed Halliwell, a writer who has contributed columns on meditation for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, and Jonty Heaversedge, who is a family doctor who also presents on medical topics on television and radio. Halliwell is the main contributor, and his writing is clear and lively.

The Mindful Manifesto is both a guide — in very accessible language — to the practice of mindfulness, and a fascinating history of how the west has come to embrace meditation. The authors state their dual intensions in saying “we’d like to invite you to learn more about mindfulness, through an exploration of its history, philosophy, science, and practice. We’d like to invite you to see how it could make a difference — in your own life, and to our stressed-out world.”

Title: The Mindful Manifesto: How Doing Less and Noticing More Can Help Us Thrive in a Stressed-Out World
Author: Dr. Jonty Heaversedge and Ed Halliwell
Publisher: Hay House
ISBN: 978-1-4019-3536-8
Available from: Amazon.co.uk and UK Kindle Store, and Amazon.com and US Kindle store.

The authors say that their book is not a “manifesto” in the traditional sense of a grand plan for overhauling society, but behind that denial is a plainly visible (and quite natural) yearning for meditation to be more widely adopted. They imagine how different the world might be if politicians, for example, sat down to connect with their inner wisdom and compassion before discussions, or how healthcare might be transformed if every patient had access to meditation instruction. But there’s no concrete plan. So in what sense is this book a manifesto? The word “manifesto” is used here more in the sense of “to make manifest” or “to show plainly” (the original meaning of the word) and stands for “an invitation to let go of doing, at least for a time, and learn how to be, right now, in the present moment.” It also makes for a very catchy title.

So, how well do the authors succeed in their invitation, both to communicate how to be mindful, and to communicate meditation’s history, philosophy, and science? I think they do remarkably well in both. As a long-time practitioner of meditation (thirty years this summer) I benefited from the freshness of the Manifesto’s approach. The writers successfully translate the sometimes clunky and unappealing language of meditation (“delusion,” “attachment”) into more contemporary and accessible language (“denial, “addiction”). They take traditional Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and relate them to life as it’s lived in the west. This is a very approachable book.

The authors present numerous examples and case histories, showing how meditation has actually benefitted ordinary people. They in fact regularly slip into the first person to offer accounts of how meditation has helped them with their own personal difficulties. These examples will no doubt help many people to recognize that meditation can benefit people like them. The book offers clear instructions for eight meditation practices. Some of these are traditional, such as mindfulness of breathing, while others, like an ice-cube meditation and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s famous raisin experiment, are more contemporary. Of course it’s not really possible to follow detailed meditation instructions from a book, but the site for the Mindful Manifesto does offer audio downloads (for an extra fee). It would have been good if these were available in a streaming format, or if a CD had been included with the book. Practitioners who have an established practice will probably benefit more from the written guidance, because it’s easier to take on board “nuggets” and integrate them into what you already do than it is to read, digest, and remember whole paragraphs.

One omission that I think is unfortunate is that there’s no lovingkindness instruction given. It’s not that lovingkindness is absent from the book. Lovingkindness is mentioned in terms of having kindness and compassion to oneself, and is woven throughout every topic that’s considered, but it’s barely touched on in an explicit way. When it is mentioned by name, it’s in the language of “self-parenting” as a way of developing emotional security. While this language is both contemporary and very useful (thanks, guys, I’ll be stealing that phrase for use in my own teaching!) it’s very much to do with “self-metta,” which is only the first stage of lovingkindness practice. Lovingkindness techniques for enriching our connections with loved ones, developing more empathy for strangers, and overcoming antipathy — in other words the traditional format of lovingkindness meditation — would have made a valuable addition to The Mindful Manifesto.

The book is largely structured around a modified form of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which the authors render as mindfulness of body, mind, feelings, and life. These headings don’t really match with the traditional understandings of the satipatthanas, but practically speaking the schema works well as an instructional tool. The approach throughout these chapters is very much rooted in science, and in the clinical applications of mindfulness, so that mindfulness of the body, for example, is treated very much in terms of dealing with painful sensations in the body, using approaches made popular in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. The history of the development of such approaches is woven through this material, and is, to my mind, fascinating. Although a book on practicing mindfulness technically doesn’t have to include the historical perspective, the techniques being explained are given an extra weight of authority when put in the context of their scientifically tested applications.

The section on the fourth foundation of mindfulness departs most from the traditional descriptions. Rather than “mindfulness of dhammas” (in my view best described as “a wise understanding of the workings of the mind”) Heaversedge and Halliwell discuss “mindfulness of life.” But although the treatment is non-traditional, it nevertheless performs a valuable service in showing how mindfulness, although it begins with a focus on our selves, can be applied to the way we interact with our world :”mindfulness takes us out of the limitations of self — by connecting us to a wider view, it shows us how we can fruitfully inter-relate with others.”

I found The Mindful Manifesto to be a fascinating and enriching read. While beginners to mindfulness and meditation will undoubtedly benefit from read the book, it’s probably even more valuable to the established practitioner, who will find the contemporary language to be helpful in seeing their practice with fresh eyes, and who will gain extra confidence from the reading about the many scientific studies that confirm in great detail the many ways in which meditation can help us be happier, healthier, and more engaged individuals.

Read More

My happiness does not depend on this: old teaching, new words

buddhist scripture

“My happiness does not depend on this.” The thought crossed my mind as I sat one day in a traffic jam under a grey sky, on my way to bring a computer for repair. What I did not realise at the time was that my mind had taken the old Buddhist idea of non-attachment and non-clinging and presented it to me in language I understood.

I did realise, though, that this thought could be very rewarding indeed in my daily life. I had been worrying about the response I would get from the repair people when I brought my computer back because their previous repair had caused the new problem – but once I realised that whatever their response, my happiness level a week later would probably be the same as it was today, the tension evaporated. I brought the computer back anyway and they fixed it.

After that I began to play with the concept. Now I remind myself every day that at least 95% of the time “my happiness does not depend on this” whatever “this” might happen to be. A stolen iPhone, snow in April, a new tax, a series of challenges to be met over the next week (and, of course, the week after and the week and the week after) – all demand attention and effort; some will bring satisfaction and some frustration but whatever happens my happiness does not depend on the outcome. Knowing this seems to free me up to get on with doing what needs to be done, accepting that it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t get precisely what I want.

I have tended to live my life making the assumption that each thing I do is essential to my happiness and that it will be very bad indeed if I don’t succeed in doing it. I don’t know where this assumption came from and most of the time it has operated outside my conscious awareness. But bringing it into awareness has helped me to realise, in practice, the sheer silliness of this way of looking at things.

It was only after using my “new” concept for a while that I came to realise that this phrase was my mind’s translation of so much I had read about non-clinging, non-attachment, non-grasping and so on.

This has been of help not only to me but also to my mindfulness students to whom I like to emphasise that mindfulness is not simply a set of techniques but that the practice supports a philosophy of living, an attitudinal approach to the world and to ourselves in the world.

But surely my happiness depends on something? Of course. One important aspect of the attitude that “my happiness does not depend on this” is that it allows recognition of those things on which my happiness does, indeed, depend – usually close relationships. Would a hard-core Buddhist argue that my happiness should not depend even on close relationships? Perhaps, but then I am not a hard-core Buddhist – I’m a person who finds Buddhist philosophy valuable in helping me to approach my life in the world: so I am quite willing to have those relatively few things on which my happiness does depend getting their full place at centre stage while life’s smaller desires and inconveniences are sent to the wings.

When I wrote in my Irish Times column about the idea that “my happiness does not depend on this” I got one of the best responses ever to a column in many years. Readers all the way from full-time mums to company directors emailed to say what a difference this idea had made to them.

What fascinates me about this is that these readers were encountering an old Buddhist idea and found it immediately valuable. They took to it, as we say in Ireland, “like ducks to water.” And I am tickled by the fact that a 2,600 year old or so precept can come like a revelation in an era when we have had decades of being bombarded with advice on psychology and on how to live our lives.

Padraig O’Morain is the author of Light Mind – Mindfulness in Daily Living and teaches mindfulness in ireland. His website is www.padraigomorain.com

Read More

Can meditation make you a better parent?

Melissa McClements found it hard to cope with her daughter’s tantrums – until she joined a parent and toddler meditation class. How do you stay calm when your child misbehaves?

My toddler and I recently started a meditation class. I know what you’re thinking. What kind of idiot parent would attempt silent mind control in the presence of someone whose idea of quiet time involves sticking pencils up their nostrils and shouting ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’?

But now I am that idiot parent. And – despite a cringeworthy moment when my two-year-old pointed to a Buddhist monk and asked, “Why is that man wearing …

Read the original article »

Read More

Capturing the moment

I was sitting in a café with my friend David when he said, ‘There’s something to look at behind you.’

I glanced across, trying not to be obvious. All I saw was an old woman eating her soup. David leaned forward. ‘She’s like a Rembrandt.’

I looked again and noticed her intent concentration. She was very old, her body shrunk to a few feet, and every movement was a painful effort. Slowly, very slowly, she raised her spoon from her bowl to her mouth. And slowly she lowered it again. Her face was creased into a web of lines, as if her skin was fracturing and these lines, held together only by the power of her will, were all that bound her flesh. Her eyes gazed at the bowl and her attention focused the room. In the weakness of her body all that existed for her was this moment and the act of eating. Her clothes were plain and black, and outlined her against the bare wall. The light around her seemed to hover, fixing and framing her image.

‘I wish I had a camera,’ I said.

‘No,’ said David. ‘It’s perfect as it is. You don’t have to make a picture out of it.’

I looked again and saw David was right. Her face, her concentration, and the aching slowness of her movements were all perfect. She was like a Rembrandt painting, and her image embodied, in its way, their grace and stillness. But Rembrandt was simply a guide to this instant, this glimpse of a woman’s dignity in the face of her body’s decay and the palpable approach of death. This moment of quiet grace was the product of her presence and David’s appreciative gaze, through which its beauty had been disclosed.

If I had sat alone in the café I probably wouldn’t have noticed the woman at all. David showed me how to look, and most importantly he showed me that it is a mistake to appropriate such a moment. To see how extraordinary, unique and beautiful is each moment of our lives we need to let go of the grasping mind and see it freshly, with mindfulness.

Read More
Menu